"WE FEED OUR PEOPLES AND BUILD THE MOVEMENT TO CHANGE THE WORLD!": INTERNATIONAL PEASANT MOVEMENT PREPARES TO CONVERGE FOR ITS VIITH CONFERENCE [1]

Press release, Harare, May 25, 2017:

_"We feed our peoples and build the movement to change the world!"_ - is the call that will carry hundreds of delegates of the international peasant movement _La Vía Campesina_, to the Basque Country from the 16th to the 24th of July to celebrate their VIIth Conference.

The International Conference of La Via Campesina (LVC), held every four years, is the movement's highest decision-making forum - gathering representatives from member organisations of peasants, small and medium size producers, landless people, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers - from all over the world. Collectively representing over 200 million people, these delegates will decide common strategies and host internal debates for the growing global movement.

For a week in Derio, Basque Country, representatives will discuss local experiences as well as international processes such as the Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas [2], the negotiations for an international and legally binding instrument [3] against the abuse of multinational corporations in the UN Human Rights Council. The different regions of LVC will also present their struggles, such as the European region's struggle for a new Common Agricultural Policy and reform against the concentration of land; the struggle in Africa, for seed sovereignty; of the Latin American struggle for popular agrarian reform and against corporate interest; and the campaigns of the Asian regions against free trade agreements (FTAs), GMOs and crises caused by climate change.

Particular focus will be given to issues such as: the impact of FTAs ​​on Food Sovereignty, corporate capture and patenting of seeds, criminalisation of the movement and even the murder of its leaders, peasant solutions to climate change and agroecology as a way of exercising Food Sovereignty in our territories. There will be events open to the public scheduled for July 19 in Derio (for the opening of the Conference) and on July 23 in a march from Dario to the Plaza Nueva in Bilbao, where a public political event will be held.

At a time when, on the one hand, the importance of food chains is gaining ground in public opinion, and on the other the global abuses against peasant communities intensify, the conclusions of this meeting aim to be a significant advance in the struggle for Food Sovereignty and to strengthen the work carried out by La Via Campesina for the realisation of peasants' rights and, thereby bring peace and justice in rural communities and the world.

For more information on the VII Conference of La Via Campesina, download the press kit [4]. -------------------------

CONTACTS:

*

Alazne Intxauspe: +34 667576740 | alaznentzat@gmail.com (ES, EUK) *

Viviana Rojas Flores: +34 6616 41838 |+593 9952 13177 | viviana.rojas@viacampesina.org (ES, PT) * Andres Arce: +34 6616 41528 | +32 4895 52297 | andres@eurovia.org (EN, FR, ES)

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During the last 24 years La Via Campesina has held 6 international conferences. The first in Belgium in 1993, then in Mexico in 1996, in India in 2000, its fourth in Brazil in 2004, in Mozambique in 2008, and the last in Indonesia in 2013. All of which have contributed to the advancement and convergence of a project Of unity and solidarity of the peasants of the north and the south, from all continents, with the horizon of strengthening the peasant movement at a global level in the search for justice and dignity for the countryside.

Links: ------ [1] https://viacampesina.org/en/index.php/our-conferences-mainmenu-28/7-abadino-... [2] http://www.eurovia.org/one-step-closer-towards-a-un-declaration-on-the-right... [3] https://viacampesina.org/es/index.php/acciones-y-eventos-mainmenu-26/no-a-la... [4] https://viacampesina.org/downloads/pdf/en/VIIth%20Conf%20Press%20Kit_EN_12Ma...